An Iron Painter’s Quest, Episode 2: So Much Water…

After seven pours (or was it eight?) and a bottle and a half of Secret Weapon Miniatures water effects, the base for my Iron Painter round one entry is finally complete! I knew it would take a lot of water effects, but I was surprised at how much it took. So many layers of water effects…

I am excited with how the water on the base came out and how the ripples of sand underneath the water ended up looking. Here’s a look at the base before I poured any water effects.

I wrapped packaging tape around the rim of the base to hold in the water effects as it dried so that it could then be peeled away to reveal the side view into the water. This was the first time I have used water effects where they weren’t entirely contained within the confines of the piece I was working on, so I learned a few things about this method. First is that it would probably be easier to do if the sides of the base were entirely vertical and not beveled; this would definitely help with the next lesson I learned–make quintuple sure that the tape is really really really sealed all the way around. After the first pour I realized that the seal wasn’t perfect all the way around the base and a large portion of the water effects leaked out to beneath the base. Luckily it pooled in the tape underneath the base, so it didn’t make too much mess. For later pours I made sure the leak was plugged up and wrapped a tight rubber band around the rim of the base to keep the tape compressed enough to not let any more water effects out.

In between pours of water effects I did some more work on the pirate dwarf. At this point there’s mostly just detail work left to do on him. And then I poured some more water effects and waited…

More water effects! Don’t forget to pop any bubbles!

You can finally start to see into the water effects from the side. But still I must pour and wait…

And after much pouring and waiting, here is the end result!

After pealing off the retaining tape the edges of the water effects did need to be cleaned up a bit, but not all that much. I am really happy with the final result.

I also toyed around with the background I think I will take my final photo of my entry on.

Now I just have to finish of the painting up the dwarf and do a little bit of freehand on the papers on the base and then I’ll be done! With a little less than a week to finish this off, it’s crunch time now! Check back soon for more updates on this undertaking!